A great live registration based on the hard bop tradition!MICHEL MAINIL - REFLECTIONS IN BLUE: Live concert at the Brussels MUSIC VILLAGEHans Koert

Michel Mainil released a new album entitled Reflections in Blue, named after a James Williams composition. The Michel Mainil Quartet - Reflections in Blue album, was recorded live at the Music Village, a well known jazz club at the Steenstraat near the Grote Marktof Brussels. Michel Mainil performed with his quartet, featuring himself at the tenor and soprano saxophone, Alain Rochette at the piano, José Bedeur at the double bass and Antoine Cirri drums. The concerts took place in the first week of August, 2009. Michel Mainil is born in La Louviere and studied at the Conservatory of La Louviere. As a student he discovered the music of Duke Ellington and became fascinated by the great reeds players John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz. From the former he loved to listen to records like Blue Train and Afro Blue Impression. He played in all kinds of (jazz) bands, from traditional jazz to world music, before he left Europe for a few years to live in Cameroon, where he played with local groups. When he returned to Belgium he founded his band Nemesis with Pascale Loriers, Piet Verbiest and Guy Vaerendonck. He also directed the Michel Mainil Quintet with Paolo Loveri, Alex Furnelle, Alain Rochette, José Bedeur and Richard Rousselet. He played in a group, dedicated to the music of Monk, entitled A Monk's Flavour. During the last decade Michel is active in numerous groups and projects, too much to make a complete list, and this quartet is one of it.The Michel Mainil Quartet released an album entitled Water and Other Games, recorded in La Louviere in November 2003 for Aramand this one, Reflections in Blue seems to be a logical follow up.The album contains seven tracks, originally composed by some well known composers like Cole Porter ( Get Out Of Town), George Gershwin ( with one of the highlights from the Porgy en Bess suite, I loves You Porgy) and the Wayne Shorter tune, Footprints, which Shorter recorded in February 1966 for the first time with his Quartet for the Blue Note album Adam's Apple and which would become one of Shorter's best known compositions. Footprints is one of the lengthy tracks released on the Michel Mainil album, as most have a 10 minutes playing times - one of the joys of a live concert registration.

The seldom heard tune Mishima, a David Schnittercomposition, was, like the title track Reflections in Blue, only recorded in December 1978 by Art Blakey and his Jazzmessengers, in the period that David Schnitter played the tenor saxophone in that band. Michel Mainir( photo courtesy: J-P. Stercq)

A remarkable choice is the tune Beija Flor, which opens with a piano intro by Alain Rochette and a great bowed solo by José Bedeur. It's a Brazilian song ( Beija Flor is a kind of hummingbird ) originally composed by Nelson Antonio da Silva, a guitarist better known as Nelson Cavaquinho. Nelson started his career at the cavaquinho, playingChoro music, before he specialized in samba's. This tune has been recorded by the Peter Herbolzheimer Rhythm Combination & Brass May 1994 and recently by the Marco Cesar Sexteto Capibaribe and the quartet of the popular 12-strings cavaquinho player Hamilton De Holanda. Another stranger in the midst is the jazz traditional Just A Closer Walk With Thee with a less successful vocalized bass solo by José Bedeur.

The Michel Mainil Quartet features skilled jazz musicians like José Bedeur, active on both double bass as chello, who played with great names like Coleman Hawkins, Claude Bolling, Martial Solal, Johnny Griffin and Tete Montoliu;Alain Rochette, piano player and Michel Mainil know each other well and play for years together. Antoine Cirri, drummer, is also part of the Alain Cupper Quartet, the group of the Belgian baritone saxophone player and the group Jojoba, with Jean-Luc Pappi at the piano.

If you like jazz with its roots in the 1950s jazz tradition, like the hard bop, this album should be in your collection. You can order the album Reflections in Blue on this site.

The Michel Mainil Quartet recorded live at the Brussels Music Village jazz Club and the concert was released on an album entitled Reflections in Blue. Four skilled Belgian jazz musicians honour the jazz from the 1950s and 1960s with some rare heard tunes. Keep Swinging reviewed it - don't miss it. If you love to read it all, follow it at Twitter or ask for its free newsletter.

On Monday the 30th of January, 1911, this weekend 100 years ago, David Roy Eldridge was born in Pittsburgh. In two blogs I love to spotlight this now forgotten and neglected trumpet player.

"You hear young people talking about Roy today, and they are talking about Roy Hargrove," he says with a tone of disapproval. "I tell them, no, there only is one Roy, and that's Roy Eldridge."(Steve Turre in the Tribune-Review)(2008)Roy Eldridge (1911-1989) in front of the Savoy Ballroom (September 1935)(photo courtesy: Duncen P. Schiedt)When he was born, he had already a brother, named Joe, who was two and a half years older. As a kid he learned to play the piano and violin at school, but he had loved to play the drums. At the age of eight, he got a flugelhorn and later a trumpet, and, together with his brother Joe on alto saxophone, he learned to play the tunes. His brother played the tunes for him, as Roy couldn't read music. When he was a teenager he got his first regular job in The Greater Sheesley Carnival band, but, due the fact that he couldn't read music, this first job was not a success. He found some gigs in some territory bands, before he moved to New York City, where he founded his own band, Roy Elliot and the Palais Royal Orchestra from New York and became a member of bands like the orchestras of Horace Henderson, Zack White and Cecil Scott.

In 1930 he played on a regular base with Clarence Williams and, although the discographers don't know for sure, his first recordings might have been with Clarence Williams Jazz Kings on a Columbia recording session, July 1930. Early 1932 he is present in a short film, entitled Smash Your Baggage as a member of the Elmer Snowden Small's Paradise Orchestra. This Jazz medley contains three tunes: Bugle Call Rag, Tiger Rag and Stop the Moon, Stop the Sun, with Mabel Scott as the vocalist ........ (Don't try this at home)

He received his nickname Mr. Little Jazz from the members of the Elmer Snowden Small's Paradise Orchestra, due to his length and the fact that he was a very fanatic trumpet player.

Roy said to have been influenced by trumpet players like Rex Stewart and Red Nichols and saxophone players like Coleman Hawkins and Bennie Carter. He wasn't really fascinated by Louis Armstrong, the growing star of that times, up to the moment when he heard Louis for the very first time in a concert in the Lafayette Theatre in New York. One of the tunes Louis played was Chinatown My Chinatown. Later he remembered this thrilling experience: He started out like a new book, building and building chorus after chorus and finally reaching a full climax, right, clean, clear. ........ Everybody was standing up, including me. He started to study seriously the music of Louis Armstrong.

Anita O'Day and Roy Eldridge when they performed with the Gene Krupa band( Source: The Big Bands - George T. Simon)

During the 1930s he played in Teddy Wilson's Orchestra and recorded the first recordings under his own name as the Delta Four and the Roy Eldridge Septet featuring his brother Joe. In 1936 he played with Fletcher Henderson, before he founded his own orchestra featuring his brother Joe on alto saxophone, as the house orchestra of the Three Deuces in Chicago and later from the Savoy Ballroom in New York. During the 1938 - 1941 period he had his own big band in the Arcadia Ballroom, before he joined the band of Gene Krupa. It was a white band and as a black man he found his place in the orchestra, but "later", on the bus, he wouldn't be able to get off and buy a hamburger with the guys in the band. ( Artie Shaw in Little Jazz - Whitney Ballett).

In After You've Gone, recorded in 1949 by the Gene Krupa Band you can hear Roy at his best .......

In Roy Eldridge 100: Battle of the trumpets you can learn more about his trips to Europe during the 1950s and his fights to be the best ..............

Hans Koertkeepswinging@live.nl

This weekend Roy Eldridge, Mr. Little Jazz, was born 100 years ago. This great trumpet player, now almost forgotten, could be labeled as the link between the older generation of trumpet players and the beboppers like Dizzy Gillespie, Howard McGhee and Clifford Brown. Today the first part of a small tribute to this neglected trumpet player. Keep Swinging loves to spotlight such forgotten giants in jazz - if you won't miss it, follow it a Twitter oraskfor itsnewsletter.

Jack Diéval présente ...JAZZ AUX CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES - a European broadcast of light music and jazz.Hans Koert One of the most popular French radio programs on Paris-Inter from the 1950s and 1960s must have been “Jazz aux Champs-Élysées”, directed by Jack (= Jacques) Diéval …. Une émission européenne de variétés et de jazz. ( = A European broadcast of light music and jazz. )

Jack Diéval, the man with the pipe (1921)( source: Jack Diéval Trio - Live at the "St. James de Paris)

Producer, host and piano player Jack Diéval, the man with the pipe, born September 1921, was a popular announcer during the 195os and 1960s and hosted the program for more then 20 years. What made the program so special?Jazz aux Champs Élysée ( released by INA) (cover photo: The Delta Rhythm Boys)( photo courtesy: Ina, Louis Joyeux, Paris)

Well - In Holland we had a similar popular radio program for the AVRO entitled Swing and Sweet from Hollywood and 52nd Street by Pete Felleman, which lasted for more then 50 years. The difference between Jack Dieval'sJazz aux Champs-Élysées program in France and Pete Felleman'sSwing and Sweet in Holland was that the latter played gramophone records, while most of Jack Diéval's music was live or especially recorded for his program.Bobby Jaspar (1926 - 1963)( source: Vogue)

The US musicians that visited France where invited to join the program, accompanied by the JACE All-Stars ( JACE: Jazz aux Champs-Élysées), with great names like guitarist René Thomas, Guy Lafitte and Roger Guérin, to list some. Some of the foreign jazz musicians that joined the program were Lester Young, Donald Byrd and Bobby Jaspar, Walter Davis jr., Lucky Thompson, Chet Baker and Catharina Valente, Stéphane Grappelli, Stan Getz and the Delta Rhythm Boys.

The Delta Rhythm Boys(Source:http://www.ukforsk.se/ukf/bd-delta.htm )

Thanks to the FrenchINA ( the French Sound and Light archive) some of these recordings are re-issued on a cd entitled Jazz Aux Champs-Élysées L'émission culte de Jack Diéval. The album contains almost 2 dozen tracks from the 1955 - 1959 period with the foreign guests listed above.

The album contains extensive information about the musicians. A must is you love to learn more about these visiting jazzmen ......... and the European jazz history of the 1950s.

INA has created a French national archives of what has been broadcast over French radio and television: almost 30,000 hours are available on its sites. A great treasure ......... The album can be ordered at its website.

Another selection of tunes by Jack Diéval - Jazz aux Champs-Élysées, with a program by Jack Diéval and his JACE-All Stars, has been released in the budget series: Jazz in Paris.

Jack or better Jacques Diéval, the man with the pipe, was the host and producer of Jazz aux Champs-Élysées, a weekly program on Paris-Inter with light music and jazz during the 1950s and 1960s with numerous US guests musicians who visited Europe. The musicians where accompanied by his JACE All-Stars, which featured the best French jazzmen of that moment. The INA released a great album with a selections of those concerts, featuring great names like Lester Young, Stephane Grappelli, Chet Baker and Bobby Jaspar. Keep Swinging recommends this pearl of European Jazz ... If you don't want to miss its contribution, follow it at Twitter or ask for its free newsletter.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Creativity is the thing!TRIPLICATE - THREE AND ONE: A promising debutHans Koert

Triplicate keeps the jazz tradition and the spirit of this music alive. (Claudio Roditi). I found this quote byClaudio Roditi, the Brazilian trumpet player on the album cover of a new record by Triplicate, entitled Three and one. Trumpet player Ellister Van Der Molen once met Roditi and his music inspired her. This quote from Claudio Roditi, he is one of my favoritestoo, made me anxious to listen to the music on the album and I liked it .............

Triplicate isn't about trends or fashions, but is, instead, driven by pure musicianship and a deep love for jazz music. A love that connects tradition with a freshness that is very much rooted in the present.

The drumless trio Triplicate, for their debut album enlarged with Eric Ineke on drums, features Ellister Van Der Molen on trumpet and flugelhorn, Bob Wijnen at the piano and Johnny Daly on double bass. Their first album is entitled Three and one, referring, of course, to their trio form with guest Eric Ineke but also to the Thad Jones composition Three And One orginally recorded by the Jones Brothers ( ( Thad - Hank - Eddie and Elvin) in 1958.

Eric Ineke( photo courtesy: Hans Koert)Ellister Van Der Molen is born March 1977 and raised into a music loving family, as she describes it at her website. Her talents to make music attracked attention and she became a student at the preparatory-department for young talented children of the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, like another Dutch jazz musicians Rik Mol, who, by accident, alo became a jazz trumpet player. In 2000 she graduated and started to play in various jazz bands, from the Jimmy Lunceford Legacy Orchestra,Dim Kesber and Friends, the all-girl band Alice in Dixieland ( despite the name suggests, this ladies-band plays swing, bebop and mainstream jazz), Leticia y su Rumbadama ( an all-women salsa band) and the New Generation Big Band, which plays hiphop and funky rhythms. Together with reeds player David Lukács she cooperated in their own quintet, the David Lukács - Ellister Van Der Molen Quintet. She likes to perform in a trio, a setting she learned to enjoy while she was still at the conservatory. Music is communication, she explains. Playing just the three of us allows us to react on one another right away. We can even all look each other in the eyes. Creativity is the thing! Triplicate - Three and one ( TRPL01)(cover design: De Zagerij)Her Ellister Three features herself on flugelhorn, Vincent Koning (guitar) and Uli Glaszmann (bass). Triplicate is her second trio, featuring trumpet, piano and double bass. The trio loves to dig into jazz treasures from the past - "something from all the different styles and moods that go to make up the rich tapestry that is jazz music" - music as played by great names like bebop piano player Tadd Dameron or tenor saxophonist, but also a great composer and arranger Benny Golson. who hopes to celebrate his 82nd birthday later this week. Piano player Bob Wijnen, born in 1971, studied at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague too, played in bands like the Janssen 4, a blend from Jazz, Classical, Popular, World and Folk music. Bass player Johnny Daly is from Ireland and plays in Equinox, a group which surprised with their debut album Equinox. Eric Ineke, who is active in the Dutch jazz scene since the 1960s, don't needs further introduction, I think. He is the regular accompanist in the Rein De Graaff Trio since the early 1970s and has his own group: The Eric Ineke's JazzXpress.He is also, together with Marius Beets, part of the David Liebman Trio. He teaches percussion at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and at the Koorenhuis.The album of Triplicate Three and one, contains almost a dozen tracks, eight standards and three own compositions by trumpet player Ellister Van Der Molen - The first one, with the puzzling name TBV, strikes the right chord - uptempo hard bop - music that fascinates me. Ellister told me that TBV is just what it is: the Dutch abbrevation for ten behoeve van, which means "in behalf of", the work title for the song and the album. Ellister plays flugelhorn in tunes like the standard Three and one, which opens with a drum intro by nester Eric Ineke or in ballads like Gnid, in 1956 recorded by the Tadd Dameron Quartet featuring a young John Coltrane;Bud Powell’s I'll Keep Loving You or in Kenny Wheeler'sEverybody's Song But My Own. I really liked Seven Steps to Heaven, played by Ellister on a muted trumpet, originally composed by Victor Feldman, but, of course, remembered by the Miles Davis 1963 recordings - Great to hear this young ambitious group plays such a great tune.

Triplicate released this album at a concert at Pavlov - The HagueDecember 2010. Enjoy a fragment in which the band plays its opening tune TBV.

The trio labels its style as chamber jazz, and maybe that's true, as they normally play without a drummer, but this album, featuring Eric Ineke on drums, is much more then that. On the cover they describe their music as a rich homage to the ongoing story of what jazz music was and what it still can be, fuelled by improvisations, that vary from delicate to adventurous. Eric Ineke( photo courtesy: Hans Koert)

A great debut album of this young group, that knows its roots, not swayed by the issues of the day. The result is "Triplicate", a group dedicated to the roots of jazz music while constantly looking to the future.

Hans Koertkeepswinging@live.nlThe young Dutch group Triplicate released last month its debut album in Pavlov Bar and Restaurant in The Hague, entitled Three and one. The trio, featuring trumpet player Ellister Van Der Molen, pianist Bob Wijnen and double bass player Johnny Dale was enlarged with drummer and nester of the Dutch jazzscene Eric Ineke. Its debut Three and one surprised - a great album made by young people, not swayed by the issues of the day, but striving to keep the jazz tradition and thre spirit of jazz alive, healthy and into the future!(quote (not to the letter): Claudio Roditi.) Keep swinging loves to put such albums in the psot;lights - if you don't want to miss any, follow it at Twitter or askits free newsletter.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

I just want to keep doing what I do, which is swing the hell out of a tune.(Tutu Puoane)TUTU PUOANE introduces AFRICAN WARMTH to PORGY EN BESS Jazz Club.Hans Koert

The South African vocalist Tutu Puoane charmed with her voice and charisma the Porgy en Bess Jazz Club audience at the New Years concert in Terneuzen, in the southwest part of The Netherlands, scheduled on Sunday afternoon the 16th of January, 2011. Tutu Puoane, now living in Antwerp, Belgium, had brought her band, featuring her husband Ewout Pierreux at the keys, Nicolas Thys on double bass and Lieven Venken on drums.Tutu Puoane( photo courtesy: Hans Koert)Tutu Puoane is born as Nontuthuzelo Elaine Puoane in Atteridgeville (South Africa), May 1979, and raised in a musical family in Mamelodi township of Pretoria ( South Africa.). As a young girl she heard at home the music of John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley which she labelled as "old people's music". Forgive her about that! She started to sing in downtown Johannesburg, and after a year at the Fuba Academy she started at the University of Cape Town with vocal training by Jelena Reveshin, a jazz vocalist herself. One of the first things she learned from Jelena was: Don't want to sound like Whitney Houston - Get rid of that. While she studied at the university, she was discovered by the Dutch jazz piano player Jack Van Poll, who invited her for a tour to Holland. She got the opportunity to study with Rachel Gould at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. In 2004 she received the most prestigious jazz award of South Africa, the Young Artist of the Year award of the Standard Bank ( Standard Bank Jong Kunstenaar vir jazz ) for which she was labeled as die volgende generasie van Afrika-sterre gaan lei ( = the next generation to lead the African stars.). The South African press was lyrical about her performances at the festivities around this award, but had some remarks about the European musicians that accompanied her: Maar Puoane, wat talent en temperament in gelyke groot mate ontvang het, het haar eie idees gehad. (= But Puoane, who has reveived talents as well as temperament, has her own ideas). Eerstens het sy verras met die samestelling van haar ondersteuningsgroep - sonder uitsondering leliewit Europeërs wat nog niet tevore 'n voet op die Moederkontinent gesit het nie. ( = First of all she surprised with her selection of accompanists - all, without exceptions, white Europeans, who had never visited Africa). Die Burger, ons nuwe koerant vir 'n nuwe wereld ( = Our new newspaper for a new world) from July 2004, written in Afrikaans, continued to say that she had made a good choice: Wat Puoana wel .... raakgesien het, behalwe hul vergelykbare jeugdigheid, is 'n talent en passie vir die grenssorskrydende, universele taal van jazz. ( = But Puoane was right: Except their common youthfullness, they all had the talents and passion to play this cross-border, universal language of jazz). She brought one of her accompanists from 2004 to Terneuzen, piano playerEwout Pierreux, her husband now. They have a young kid and live in Antwerp now.

Tutu Puoane( photo courtesy: Hans Koert)

She started the first set in Porgy en Bess with the tune Quiet Now in which she welcomed the Porgy en Bess audience as only a great jazz vocalist can do: singing and improvising. In a mix of Dutch and English, she told how she remembered her first concert in Porgy en Bess: Ik herinner me dat deze paal rood geschilderd was, isn't it? ( = I remember that this post was red painted, isn't it?). I guess I like that better - Could someone paint it red again?).

Nicolas Thys( photo courtesy: Hans Koert)

She happened to be an engaging personality. She sung tunes like I Know you Know and a great tune, entitled 36th/10th, written by bass player Nicolas Thys, who lives, like drummer Lieven Thys, most of the year in New York City. I've been there two times - each times, after 4 days I got home sick .......... Tutu sighed. But now I know you live there - I've got a place to go .......... Tutu is influenced by vocalists like Sarah Vaughan ( She could swing like crazy) and Billie Holiday ( for the emotion she could squeeze from a phrase) she told in an interview with Kwanele Sosibo(from The South African Guardian), but also Joni Mitchell, for the poetry in her lyrics.

Tutu sung an Ewout Pierreux composition, Simple Truth, a bass-vocal duet, with Nicolas Thys on double bass, which impressed and was, for me, one of the highlights of the concert. Is dat niet mooi? (= Isn't that great?) I fell in love with that bass - My dream is to make a record with a bass player only ......... and after a pause ..... Not particulary with Thys, any bass will do ....... she excused.

Lieven Venken ( photo courtesy: Hans Koert)

Another song, that impressed, was dedicated to their young daughter, entitled Song for Mpho, sung in English and Xhosa. During the concert she sung some more tunes from her last album Quiet Now, like Mangakene, and Hlompa Bophelo.Als je wilt kun je ons vanavond aan de deur meenemen (= If you like you can take us home tonight at the door), she suggested at the end of the concert, to point the audience to her latest album Quiet Now. The audience didn't let her go before she gave an encore, which was a song, entitled Lakutshoni 'Langa, a South African traditional, which means something like In the eve of the sunset, which she previously recorded with the Frits Bayens Big Band for a private release - a Dutch amateur big band she loves to sing with.

This New Year concert with the Tutu Puoane Quartet was a great starter for the Porgy en Bess Jazz clubfor 2011 and the audience and the Porgy en Bess crew ( all volunteers)(!) could look back upon a great concert.

The South-African vocalist Tutu Puoane has been inspired by great jazz vocalists like Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday and Joni Mitchell. She showed at a concert at the Porgy en Bess Jazz Club in Terneuzen, in the southwest part of The Netherlands, that she could entertain the audience with her voice and charisma together with her leliewit ondersteuningsgroep ( "white accompanists") as they say in Afrikaans. Keep Swinging joined this succesfull concert. If you like to read about such meetings, follow the Keep Swinging blog at Twitter or ask for its free newsletter.